A very UAE Graduation

Always a fun occasion (sort of) I feel it would be an injustice to fail to share my story about Grade 12 graduation at an Emirati school, with you. First things first. It's not really a graduation. All of the grade 12 students attend it, even though their marks have not been submitted and they have not written final exams, so they don't even know if they have passed. That would seem really ridiculous, except everyone passes anyways-so it really doesn't matter.

It is best to start with a description of the little graduates themselves. These are young Muslim girls who cover their face in public, wear the same frumpy uniform every day covering them from head to toe and aren't allowed to wear make-up, nail polish or even a fancy hair clip to school. That all goes entirely out the window when it comes to graduation. They go from looking like this:

(Picture from the internet-NOT my students)

To this:

Also their dresses look like this:

So once you get past the sweet little Muslim girls looking like drag queens, you see the area they have set up for the buffet. The whole cafeteria has been set up wedding style and all the tables are covered in golden crushed velvet table cloths and place settings with gold cutlery. I didn't get a picture of it either, but picture everything covered in this:

So we go into the graduation and they play the song that cost them 5000 dirhams ($1400) to get recorded for the graduates to walk into the room. The best part is that the teachers running the grad couldn't figure out how to properly hook up the laptop to the audio system so it would play through the speakers, so they had to hold a microphone to the laptop so everyone could hear the song. $1400 worth of feedbacky, echoey, scratchy song. Nailed it.

The students come in and they play a few poorly made slideshows while the parents all around talk, answer their cellphones, get up and walk around...etc. Do everything except watch the graduation. You'd think if you were coming to your child's graduation, that you could turn your phone on silent! Apparently not. 

There were some parents who really did care very much about their daughters graduating. There was some light applause for most students, but a couple kid's parents stood up and shouted CONGRATULATIONS! (in Arabic) and whooped it up while their kid went on stage. I love to see that!

Us English teachers stayed for most of the graduation, even though it was entirely in Arabic (that's dedication right there!) and we tried to get up to leave after the graduates had all left the auditorium, only to find out they had LOCKED US IN! They locked the parents and teachers in so that no one could leave before the program was over. Fire safety issue? Nah. Emergency exit plan? No need. It's way more important that you stay and watch this 4 hour graduation.

All in all, they tried their very best to make the graduation special for the students and that is what really matters. I did have a feeling of pride when I saw my students (some of whom I have taught for two years) walk across the stage. I enjoyed being there to celebrate with them, but I also had to share the story with you...because it is yet another Only in the UAE kind of situation.